Wireless mice are known which employ, for example, an optical or infrared sensor that senses movement of the wireless mouse on a surface, such as a table, and wirelessly communicates pointing device control information such as cursor location information or menu selection information to a short range wireless receiver in a laptop device or other device. Such wireless mice provide many advantages but can run out of battery power. The device may then be recharged through a USB port with the laptop device or through an AC wall socket or other suitable power source.
Wireless handheld devices such as cell phones and cell phones combined with other functions such as email and Internet access are also known (such as the Blackberry® type device or other suitable devices). Such devices employ a display for displaying information to a user and also employ a pointing device such as a mouse or track wheel which is used to control a graphic user interface such as controlling cursor movement and/or menu selection on a local display. Such devices may employ a pointing device such as a touch pad, tracking wheel, or other conventional mouse that detects the movement of a user's finger relative to a touch pad or movement of a tracking wheel relative to a fixed point in the housing of the handheld device. However, such local pointing devices do not typically control a GUI on a remote device.
It would be desirable to have a wireless pointing device that would couple with or be integrated with a wireless handheld device to receive additional battery power for the wireless pointing device and/or to provide GUI control of an external device to the handheld device.